buying a bigger bed

Sep 05, 2015

professionally and personally, these past few weeks have been exciting. dream. plan. build. execute. what began a thousand days ago continues it's steady momentum. the salon phone rings and rings. days filled with laughter, conversation. beauty abounds. it's working. it continues to grow. all of us, the entire D+L family, made room in our lives for this to be possible. we believed in what we dreamed and it came to pass. is this not the way life happens?

too often i meet young people who, like my former self, are in a big hurry to get wherever it is they think they should be. how can this generation measure up among the false parade of posers looming and lurching from a barrage of social media? it confounds my powers of comprehension. and yet social media can be exquisite. i adore seeing the posts of my friends and family. their kids and their kid's kids. a picture is worth a thousand words. imagine an app that allows for no words, only pictures. context is everything. but to force a context is a lie. and though i know this business needs social media to peel back the curtain and allow you to see into our daily lives, i feel it warps the world around us in a consistent and noisy stream. we gladly share (most days) and humbly give you one post a day so as not to over-share, cajole, bombard or confound. after all, it is just soap.

mary kay ash, founder of mary kay cosmetics once offered her sales force a simple axiom for success: conceive it. believe it. achieve it. an attitude that, not unlike social media, can be pervasive if we allow it. we have the ability to choose how we wish to view the world in which we live. we also can choose how we show up. it has little to do with what we say or post. life is all about what we actually do. daily.

we all want to be loved (liked), relevant. no one wants to be picked last for the team. but how great is the kid picked last who does not complain? who plays his part and supports the team and shrugs off the fact that someone is always going to be called last? being picked last doesn't make you a loser. acting as if life owes you something is where the quicksand leads to loser territory. the kid who cannot meet life on life's terms is the one who has the most to lose.

what does all of this have to do with running a small business? everything. accepting life on life's terms is the difference between long term stability or eventual failure. every entrepreneur who closes shop has a story to go with it. part truth but mostly spin. god forbid our ideas did not work out. conversely, when things go well, people assume you're some kind of a savant. hard work, dedication, sacrifice, missteps, irony and the ability to fine-tune until one's fingers bleed is closer to my truth. but above all, the continued belief that an idea is worth nurturing. conceive. believe. achieve. grow it bigger, shrink it smaller. talk it outside, bring it back in. like the proverbial hamster on it's wheel, we continue to roll along for the sake of it all. and the hamster who won't spin on the wheel grows lazy and bloated and eventually dies.

recently i purchased a new bed. queen size. thought i would put it up in the loft in case company came over. it's taken me a long time to want company. originally there was a king sized marriage bed. needless to say that went. i got myself a comfortable smaller full size bed where i could stretch out like a starfish, blissfully alone. this arrangement has served me quite well for the past few years. then one day i woke up and realized that i might not be alone forever. so i needed to make some room. literally. in my life, in my heart and yes, in my bed. because that's how i believe life works. i am not afraid to be alone. i do not fear being unloved. i just know in my marrow that the time has come to stop being so self involved. so up goes the full size bed into the loft and the queen (insert joke here) goes into the bedroom. and like everything else in my world, it will surely come to pass. if for no other reason than because i believe.